


running up that hill

by gotham_ruaidh



Series: Gotham Writes for Imagine Claire & Jamie [26]
Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-27
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-16 12:09:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5828029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gotham_ruaidh/pseuds/gotham_ruaidh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Imagine Jamie running up the hill to make sure Claire made it through in DIA only to regret his choice and fall to pieces when he finds her gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was a prompt sent in to [Imagine Claire & Jamie](http://imagineclaireandjamie.tumblr.com/post/138093145290/imagine-jamie-running-up-the-hill-to-make-sure) on tumblr. I'm posting my Imagine prompts here on AO3 for easier reading and in case there's anyone here who might not be on tumblr. Do feel free to check out the blog and send in prompts if you have more ideas for our favorite pair!

Blood poured down Jamie’s face as he yanked his sword from the chest of the redcoat bastard who had broken his nose. That was one. The other had run right past him, farther up the hill - 

Claire. Oh, Christ. He’d seen Claire.

Jamie swiped the sleeve of his filthy shirt across his upper lip, stumbling around the far side of the ruined cottage, scanning the misty hill -

There. That damn soldier’s coat blazed against the earthy moss and dead leaves - 

“Madam! I order you to halt!”

A flash of tartan, right below the the stones - Claire. He’d seen her.

Then Jamie realized he was running - sword held high, mud splattering against his shins, shrieking a Highland war cry at the top of his lungs.

The soldier was almost caught up with Claire. Jamie was still too far away. 

No.

No.

“CLAIRE!”

Time stopped. No breath could enter his lungs. 

“CLAIRE!”

And then her warm, soothing, healing touch - bliss. 

He must be dead.

“Claire,” he rasped.

“Yes, it’s me. Hush. Open your eyes.”

Jamie blinked harshly - mind fumbling, flailing to find an anchor in a body, a time, or a place - 

“Jamie.” Her voice was so sweet, so patient. “It’s all right. You were having that dream again.”

She eased him to a sitting position against the headboard. Moonlight poured through the open window, gilding her bare shoulders as she straddled him.

“Hush. You’re here. I’m here. It’s in the past.”

His thumb shakily traced her features. 

“I -” 

But he had no words. And she understood, gently digging her fingers into the damp hair at the base of his skull and slowly drawing his face to the shelter of her neck.

He locked his limbs around her body and inhaled deeply, grounding himself. She held him tight, and loved him, and healed him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a prompt sent in to [Imagine Claire & Jamie](http://imagineclaireandjamie.tumblr.com/post/139667770886/please-continue-the-story-where-jamie-wakes-up) on tumblr. I'm posting my Imagine prompts here on AO3 for easier reading and in case there's anyone here who might not be on tumblr. Do feel free to check out the blog and send in prompts if you have more ideas for our favorite pair!

_Original prompt: Please continue the story where Jamie wakes up from the nightmare of losing Claire at the stones. Thank you so much!_

* * *

 

At the house on Chestnut Street, day melted into day melted into week. Social calls with John’s acquaintances from the military and government. Dinners with the pompous aristocracy, full of pointless ailments she had no interest in diagnosing. Performing a perfunctory review of the household finances and grocery list.

And breakfast most mornings with a husband whose name promised safety and companionship.

And supper most evenings with a young man who had Jamie’s face – Jamie’s voice – Jamie’s eyes – but an English accent, dark hair, and scarlet uniform.

So this was purgatory.

Over the years – when the mere thought of it hadn’t driven her to physical pain – Claire had idly wondered what a life without Jamie would be like. Not that she didn’t have any practice – but that was different. She had believed him dead, and was in her own time, and had a child – Jamie’s child – to raise.

But now – now she had irrefutable evidence that he was well and truly dead. And she was not in her own time. And she was in the regular company of Jamie’s other child – who, while well-mannered, polite, and courteous – simply didn’t know what to make of her. How to behave properly around her, she who was neither mother nor stepmother.

What purpose now to wake up every morning? To wake from vivid dreams of Jamie to find that he was still dead? Why bother getting dressed, or coming downstairs at all? Why bother using her hard-earned talents to heal, mend, fix broken things, when she herself was so fundamentally broken?

John, bless him, worked so hard to encourage her. He showered her with an expensive medicine box, packed with the finest tools available in the New World. He arranged for dressmakers to pay house calls and craft decadent gowns in rich silk. He provided for her, cared for her, tried to rip away the grey shroud that Claire had wrapped around herself.

But she didn’t care. Better to live a life, unfeeling, where what remained of her heart jittered beneath her ribs, its constant rhythm mocking her, reminding her of another heart – one she knew better than her own – that lay silent, still, static.

Deep in the night – blanketed by shadows, hidden from the light, safe and alone in her tastefully appointed bedchamber – she would let herself feel. Twist her silver ring around and around on her finger – gone all gaunt and frail, now that she’d all but stopped eating. Starvation wasn’t a painful death – it came so gradually, and she knew full well that once she reached a certain point, she’d just drift off to sleep. If she didn’t make good use of her scalpels first…

She hiccupped a quiet sob into the pillow – so alone, so afraid, so desperate.

And when she felt a large, warm, familiar hand lay gently on her shoulder, at first she believed it had finally happened – that her grieving mind had finally told her grieving heart to just give up.

But then the hand shook her, gently – and his voice, smooth and rich, whispered in her ear,

“Wake up, Claire. Come back to me. Come back here.”

She half-sobbed, half-gasped awake – and let him gently push her shoulder flat against the pillow, so that she looked up at him, face glowing in the moonlight streaming across the treetops and through their window.

He smiled, so patient, gently caressing the gentle sway of her collarbones.

“Jamie?”

He traced his thumb along the delicate line of her neck. She swallowed in reflex.

“Jamie?”

“Aye, I’m here, Claire. Ye were dreaming again.”

Then she sat bolt upright, seized with feeling, with energy, with the desire to crush him to her and never let him out of her sight.

He sighed as she clung to him like a drowning sailor to driftwood, digging her fingers so deeply into his hair that he almost cried out, burying her face into the slope of his neck, lips caressing his pulse.

“Sshh. Ye’re mine. I’m here. I will never make ye live without me. My love, you must know that.”

That she didn’t immediately retort with a sarcastic remark proved just how deeply she had been affected by the dream – grounded in the terrible reality of her brief life as Lady John Grey, and her too-long life as Mrs. Frank Randall.

She sighed, and he felt her shudder from her tailbone to the crown of her head. He cradled her, cherished her, kissed her hair, whispered words of love and devotion and commitment.

And when she sagged, exhausted, against him – he lay her down, kissed every inch of her luminous pale skin, and brought her to paradise.


End file.
